Preschool Years
by Sugar Peaches
Summary: [ONE SHOT] Erik, Christine, and Raoul were all children once. Actually, they all went to Preschool together. These three children went through a lot of silly things!


Christine Daae walked into Appleville Preschool, clutching onto her mother's hand and holding onto her lunch box with the other. It was her first day of school, and she did _not _want to go.

"Mommy," Christine pleaded, still clutching onto her mother's hand. "I dun wanna go to Pweeschool!"

Mrs. Daae sighed and said, "Everyone has to go to Preschool, sweetheart. Don't worry, you'll make lots of new friends."

Mrs. Daae searched the halls, looking for room 312. When she found it, she crouched down on the floor, and said to Christine:

"Mommy will be back to pick you up at 2:30. Now you go in there and have some fun!"

Christine just shook her head and buried her face in her mother's neck. She started to sob and cry out:

"I dun wanna!"

Before Mrs. Daae could reach the doorknob, a nice looking lady in her mid-twenties opened the door and smiled down at Christine.

"And who is this?" She asked sweetly.

Christine looked at the lady and answered quietly, "Christine."

The lady looked at the clipboard she was holding and searched the piece of paper for Christine's name. Once she found it, she highlighted the name with her pink highlighter and said,

"Miss Christine Daae, is it?"

Since Christine wouldn't answer, Mrs. Daae said: "Yes, that's correct. She's very nervous today. But I keep telling her she'll make many new friends."

"Oh, of course she will! I'm Ms. Duran, and I will be your teacher for the year! Come on in and meet your new classmates,"

Ms. Duran clutched the clipboard to her chest and extended her right hand for Christine to take. After Mrs. Daae pryed Christine off her chest and gave her an approving nod, Christine took Ms. Duran's hand.

Ms. Duran led her into a large, colorful room with toys everywhere. There was a big carpet with the ABC's and all the numbers up to 10 on it. Large wooden boxes and toychests were scattered across the room. But one little boy caught her attention.

He was in the corner of the room, reading a rather large book for his age. He stood out most because of the white mask he was wearing; which covered the right side of his face. His black hair was short and combed back, and he wore all black.

"Children!" Ms. Duran called out. Apparently nobody could hear her, for everyone was still playing with their toys.

Ms. Duran whistled and some children jumped, and others screamed. Then they all went quiet and looked at Ms. Duran.

"Children, we have a new student! Her name is Christine Daae." Ms. Duran patted Christine's head, but all of the eyes on her made her nervous. She hid behind Ms. Duran's skirt and closed her eyes; wishing everyone could look away.

But just then, she heard everyone in the room say, "Hi Christine!"

Christine smiled and moved away from Ms. Duran's skirt. She exclaimed bravely, "Heloo!"

Ms. Duran patted Christine's head again and whispered in her ear, "Go on and play with the kids, honey. I'm sure they all want to meet you." Then she walked over to a shelf and set Christine's lunch box on it.

Christine didn't bother playing with all of the other kids. Instead, she went up to the boy in the white mask.

"I'm Christine." She said to him.

The boy looked up from his book, disturbed with this girl who had interrupted him.

"I've heard," The boy replied, looking back down at his book.

"What's yer name?"

"Erik."

"I like dat name."

"Thank you."

"Why you wear a mask?"

Knowing it was completely hopeless to keep reading, Erik set slammed his book down and set it in his lap.

"None of your business."

"Pwease tell me!"

"No!"

Christine's lip quivered and she buried her head in her hands. Nobody had ever shouted to her like that. A tear slid down her cheek, and then she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry, don't cry!"

Christine looked up and saw Erik standing before her. He held out his palm and Christine took it and asked,

"Oh tay, I forgive you."

Holding hands, Erik and Christine walked over to the toychest.

"What do you wanna play?" Erik asked politely.

"Let's pway dolls! I'll be Princess Barbie, and you can be Pwince Ken!" Christine exclaimed, digging threw the chest of toys in search for two barbie dolls. Erik raised his eyebrows and looked away. He didn't want to be seen playing with dolls.

Christine emerged from the toy chest with two dolls in her hand. One barbie doll with brown hair and a pink princess dress on. And the other, which was Ken, had a crown glued to his head and was wearing a purple cape. Christine handed the Ken doll to Erik, who took it from her slowly.

"Where's the doll house?" She asked.

Erik said happily, "Oh there isn't one. I guess we can't play-"

"Ober dare!" Christine exclaimed. She ran over to the side of the room, and as she did; ran into a boy with slick golden hair and a very pretty boy face.

"Watch out poopey butt! You could of - "

Before the boy could finish his sentence, he took one look at Christine and smiled. He said,

"I'm Raoul. Sawee for yelling at you. You pwetty. Wanna pway wit me?"

Christine beamed and searched around for Erik, who was glaring at Raoul from a distance. She waved over to him and he came over slowly.

"We can all pway dolls together!"

"Dolls? No, that's a girly game! Let's pway airplanes!" Raoul said.

"But I wanna pway wit dolls!"

"Airplanes!"

"Dolls!"

"_Quiet!_" Erik shrieked. He seemed to of said it too loud, because the whole class started to stare at him. Erik didn't mind though, he just waited for everyone to turn away.

"Erik!" Ms. Duran walked up to him. "You do not use your outdoor voice inside, understood?"

"Why not?" Erik asked. "Does anyone really care?"

Ms. Duran looked at him completely stunned. Instead of answering his smart question, she yelled: "Class! Everyone sit down on the red carpet!"

The whole class dropped their toys and ran towards the red carpet. Erik, Christine, and Raoul followed. Christine sat down in an open spot and Raoul practically flew in front of Erik to sit by her. Once Raoul sat down, he chuckled, for now Erik had nowhere to sit.

"Sit over here Erik!" Christine said, patting the very small space on her left next to her; opposite Raoul, who was on her right. The boy who _was_ sitting close to her however, saw Erik and scooted over until he was squashing everyone on the left of him.

Erik sat down near Christine, because he surely didn't want to sit by anybody else. The boy next to him scooted as far away from Erik as he possible could. Erik only drooped his head.

"Class! We're going to go around the circle and say our names, and one thing we like to do. Sound okay? I'll start. My name is Ms. Duran and I love to write stories. Your turn,"

And so the class said their name and one thing they liked to do best. Then soon enough it was Raoul's turn and he answered,

"My name's Raoul. I weally like to pway with paper airplanes and play wif Christine."

Erik grumbled.

Now it was Christine's turn. She said happily, "I'm Christine. I like to sing and pway with my new fwends!" She touched Erik's shoulder and Raoul's shoulder.

Erik smiled when she touched him. _She's so pretty..._he thought to himself.

Now it was Erik's turn to say his name. He said simply,

"My name is Erik." Then he motioned for the boy next to him to go.

Ms. Duran stopped the boy who was about to speak politely. She turned to Erik and said,

"Don't you have any hobbies, Erik?"

"What's a hooby?" Raoul asked.

Ignoring Raoul, Erik said casually. "Nope."

"I'm sure you met some new friends." She piped.

Erik nodded and pointed to Christine, who flashed a bright smile.

"Well, that's nice!" Ms. Duran said joyfully. And then when they finished saying names around the circle, some boy named George or 'Booger' as he liked to be called, said:

"Let's pway hide and sneek!"

Everyone agreed and shouted in excitement. Erik turned his head to look at Christine, but he saw that the fop was talking to her. Erik growled.

"And den he went BOOM BOOM BOOM! But I threw my paper airplane at him and I was like BAM BAM BAM - " Raoul went on and on about how he magically saved the day with his fantastic paper airplane. Christine seemed to be very interested.

"And den what happen?" Christine asked in horror.

"My paper airplane went up to it and he knocked it down! And den - "

"Oh please," Erik cut in.

"Ewik, isn't Raoul bwave? His paper airpwane saved da day!"

"Yeah right. How can a stupid paper airplane knock down a blender?" He snapped.

Raoul's face hardened and he said to Erik,

"At weast she likes me! She tinks you're an ugly poopey butt!"

"I didn't say dat! Ewik is my fwend!"

And then Christine stood up and snatched both Erik's and Raoul's hand.

"Come on, let's pway hide and sneek!"

The class had gone outside for morning recess to play hide and seek. Erik was it. He counted to thirty, which had shocked Ms. Duran and amazed some of the other classmates.

"How you count to firty?" A kid named Hubert asked.

Erik smirked and said, "It's thirty, not firty! And I am smart and know how to count, unlike _some_ people here."

Hubert had ran off and started to hide in the bushes. _How smart is he?_ Erik thought. _He didn't even wait to hide. I already know where he is!_

After Erik had counted to thirty he opened his eyes and noticed that some bushes were wiggling and some children were giggling.

_Don't these people know how to play? You're suppose to stay silent so the seeker _won't_ catch you._

Erik was about to go and catch Hubert for he already knew where he was, but he heard a loud giggle behind him. Erik darted around and saw Raoul's butt sticking out from the playhouse. Erik looked behind Raoul and saw Christine giggling behind him.

He smiled at her giggling. She sounded so cute when she laughed!

When Christine caught Erik looking at her, she immediatley buried her head in her arms and stayed silent, but she still giggled. Raoul was next to her, and she knew that Erik would find him. Raoul's bottom was sticking out of the playhouse. Who wouldn't be able to see it?

Erik ran up to Raoul silently, ready to catch him, but he stopped so abruptly and fell backwards. Right when Erik was ready to touch Raoul and say 'I found you', Raoul had ripped a big fart.

"Eeewww!" Christine shrieked. She flew from the playhouse as fast as her little legs could carry her. She went up to Erik and wrapped her arms around his neck, trying to save herself from the stink.

Once Erik had felt Christine's little arms around his neck, he smiled. She was hugging him! He put his arms around her and said, "Don't worry, the stink will go away! I shall protect you from it!"

The rest of the children had heard the fart and exclaimed, "Ew!" or "Gwoss!" or "Who cut da cheese!" Erik couldn't help but laughing. He saw Raoul, who was now sitting down on the slide. His cheeks were red with embarrasement, but he seemed to be laughing to himself.

"I can smewl it from here!" A girl named Rita exclaimed.

"Dat was loud!" Sandra yelled.

"That smewls _bad!_"

"Dat was wicked kewl!"

"It smelws like wotten eggs!"

"No, it smewls like when my mommy burns the chicken in da - "

"Children!" Ms. Duran exclaimed. "Enough! It was an accident!" She hurried over to Raoul and patted his back. Raoul wiped a tear from his cheek.

"Don't worry, Raoul. Everyone does that. They'll get over it soon."

The other children went back to playing except Raoul, Christine, and Erik. Christine was still hugging Erik, and Erik was still enjoying the moment while he could. Raoul stepped off the slide and sat down across from Erik.

"Christine?" He asked.

Christine let go of Erik and looked over at Raoul.

"Yea?"

Raoul looked so sad and Erik and Christine thought he was going to say something like, "I'm sad," or "You don't care that I farted, right?" But instead he exclaimed:

"_Did you hear dat! _Dat was so loud! Dat was da biggest one dat I had ever wipped!"

Erik expected Christine to be confused or annoyed, but instead she giggled.

"Yeah, it was wike BOOM!" She exclaimed, giggling.

Raoul and Christine laughed there for a moment. Erik was getting extremely annoyed. He let in a big breath, but almost fainted. Raoul's fart still stained the air.

"Ugh!" He exclaimed and plugged his nose.

"Ewik?" Christine asked him. "Raoul isn't fawting anymore. You can smewl da air now."

Still plugging his nose, Erik exclaimed: "How can you _not_ smell that? That will stain the air forever and we will never be able to breath and we will all die of his fart!"

Christine giggled and looked at Raoul, who was frowning at Erik.

"Raoul? He was just jokin'!"

Raoul snatched Christine's little hand and stood up abruptly, pulling Christine along with him.

"Stop tawking about my fart!" He wailed. He walked quickly past Erik, still clutching onto Christine's soft tiny hand. Erik stared as Raoul brushed past some children and went over to the swing set. There was one swing that was open, and Raoul let Christine have it. She got on it happily and Raoul started to push her.

"Weee! Higher Raoul!" She shrieked happily. Erik scowled. How dare he take Christine away from him! It should be him who was pushing Christine on the swing, not that fop!

Erik walked over to the swing set and watched as Roaul pushed Christine as hard as he could. When Christine saw Erik, she smiled and waved at him.

"Look how high I am!" She exclaimed. "Weee!"

"I could push you higher," Erik offered. Christine beamed at him and said, "Oh tay! Push me, Ewik!"

Erik shoved Raoul out of the way and started to push Christine higher then she was before. Much higher. Christine clung onto the bars and screamed,

"Weeee!"

Everyone else on the swing set had stopped swinging and were staring at Erik. They were amazed at how high he was pushing Christine.

"Push me!" Linda screamed.

"No, push me!" The girl next to Linda, Mariana, demanded.

"Push me!" Sandra wailed.

"Yeah, Ewik, go push dose girls!" Raoul pushed Erik away from his spot behind Christine and Erik fell to the ground and landed roughly on the woodchips.

The three hopeful girls were staring at Erik and begging him to push them high on the swings. Erik grunted and stared at Christine. She was trying to stop the swing by dragging her feet across the woodchips under her, but Raoul kept pushing her.

"Stop Raoul! I wannna get off!" She wailed. Raoul stopped the swing and Christine jumped off and walked towards the monkey bars.

Erik was ready to follow, but when he had gotten up the girls started to beg Erik to push them. So Erik pushed the three girls on the swings. Whenever he was ready to go over to Christine, the girls would yell: "Higher Erik!"

Erik groaned.

At the monkey bars, Christine was making her way down as Raoul walked next to her, his arms extended, just in case she fell. It wasn't a long way down at all, so if Christine fell she would make it safely to the ground, but Raoul didn't think so.

When Christine made it to the last bar she exclaimed,

"I made it!"

She jumped down from the monkey bars and was ready to go and play with the jump ropes when Ms. Duran yelled,

"Alright everyone, recess is over! Lunch time!"

All of the children yelled shouts of joy and went to line up behind Ms. Duran. Christine and Raoul got in line. But where was Erik? Christine looked towards the swing set and noticed that Erik was trying to get away from the three girls that were begging to push him higher.

Erik got into line and the girls followed him and exclaimed things such as, "You pushed weally high!" and "Push me next time too!"

Christine motioned for Erik to come up to him. Happily, he did so and Christine said, "You can go in fwont of me, Ewik! So you don't have ta worry 'bout dose girls!"

Erik smiled and stepped in front of Christine. But Raoul didn't notice this, because he was too busy with his index finger up his nose.

Erik looked at him and raised his eyebrow. "Find anything?" He asked.

Raoul drew his index finger out of his nose quickly and wiped it on his pants. He scowled at Erik.

When everyone went in for lunch, Ms. Duran said that she would like everyone to sit in groups of three on the floor. Everyone got into their groups. When Christine and Raoul sat down, Erik felt uninvited. Sadly, he sat down on the floor alone.

But then he piped up. Christine had said,

"Ewik? Wat you doin' ober dare? Sit wit us!"

Erik happily got up from his place on the carpet to sit next to Christine. Christine, Raoul, and Erik were huddled in a circle, waiting for Ms. Duran's next instructions.

"Now, I want one person from each group to come and get your lunch box, including the rest of the people in your groups' lunch boxes." Ms. Duran chirped.

"I choose Raoul to go and get the lunch boxes!" Christine said, giggling.

"Well I choose Ewik to get the lunch boxes!" Raoul said.

"Ewik, who do you want to get da lunch boxes?" Christine asked.

Erik looked at Raoul and said simply, "Raoul."

"Two votes fer Raoul! You have ta get da lunches!" Christine said.

"I dun wanna!" He said, crossing his arms over his chest.

"You have ta! You were voted two times!"

"Nuh huh!"

"Yuh huh!"

"Nuh huh!"

"I'll get them!" Erik moaned.

Erik got up from his spot on the carpet and went to grab the lunch boxes. Luckily, everyone had already grabbed the lunches and were eating, so Erik picked up the last three lunch boxes that were on the shelf.

Christine's lunch box was a glittery pink Barbie one, with her name written sloppy on the back. Raoul's was a Spiderman lunch box. Erik's was a plain brown paper bag.

He handed Christine's lunch box to her first and she replied happily, "Tank you!"

Erik gave Raoul his lunch box coldly and Raoul took it from him quickly and opened it up. He immediatley grabbed a chocolate chip cookie and started to munch.

Christine opened her lunch box and picked up a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She started to eat it hungrily.

Erik opened up his lunch box, not caring what his mother had packed him. Usually she only gave him a sandwich with over expired Mayo and old ham. He opened up his sack and guessed correctly.

Christine noticed the tears prickling down Erik's cheek. He wiped the tears away with his sleeve and pulled out the old sandwich. Christine looked down at her sandwich. She also looked into her open lunch box. Two sugar cookies, some pretzels, some carrots, a juice box, and her peanut butter and jelly sandwich which was already halfway gone.

"I can share my lunch wit you." She said. Erik looked up at her hopefully and asked, "Really?"

Christine nodded and gave Erik the rest of her peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Erik smiled and looked down on the delicious sandwich. He immediatley started to chow on it as if he had not eaten in years.

Christine smiled at him. She grabbed one sugar cookie from her sack, five carrots because there were ten of them, and six pretzels because there were twelve of them. She had been learning to split things up like that. She patted down Erik's paper bag so it was flat and set all of the food she had gotten for him on it.

Erik smiled up at her and said, "Thank you."

"You welcome!"

Raoul noticed how Christine was talking to Erik, and not him. His eyes darted on Erik's sugar cookie, which was Christine's until she gave it to him. He said,

"Hey! I want one!" He pointed towards Erik's cookie which was just about to go into his mouth before Raoul ruined it.

"Sowee Raoul, I only have one more." She held her cookie up in the air for Raoul to see.

Erik chomped on his cookie and told Raoul with a full mouth, "You already had your cookie. It was chocolate chip."

"So? I want anoder one!"

Christine looked at her last cookie and gave it to Raoul. Raoul took it happily and stuffed it into his mouth. Christine watched him eat and sigh. Then she grabbed a carrot and started to chew it.

"That was mean!" Erik said.

"No it wasn't! She wasn't gonna share!"

"She shared with me."

"Not wit me!"

"You already had a cookie."

"But she didn't share!" Raoul now screeched.

Christine was munching on a carrot and watching Raoul and Erik fight with interest. After swallowing the carrot, she started to get thirsty. Christine grabbed her juice box and was ready to poke the straw into the little hole, but she noticed that the straw was missing.

"Where my staw go?" She asked mostly to herself, looking around her.

"I dunno." Raoul shrugged and went on to eat his cheese nips.

Erik helped her look for her straw but sadly they couldn't find it.

"Now I can't dwink my juice!" Christine stated sadly.

"Yes you can." Erik assured her. He took her juice box from her and with a needle that he had found lying on the ground, poked it into the hole.

"Yay Ewik! You like magic!" Christine clapped, and then she took her juice box from him and started to drink. Erik looked at the needle he had found lying on the floor, shrugged, and stuffed it into his pocket.

Christine gulped her juice down quickly. But little did she know that the juice was dripping down her chin and onto her Kermit The Frog T-shirt. Once Christine finished her juice she stuffed the empty box into her lunch box and wiped her chin with her hand.

Raoul started to laugh.

"What so funny?" Christine asked, wanting to laugh with him.

Raoul kept laughing and pointed at her now red stained t-shirt. She looked down and started to wail.

"Kermy!" She cried. "You all red!"

Raoul rolled back and forth on the carpet with laughter. "Haha!" He yelled, still laughing. "Christine got juicy on her shirt!"

Christine started to cry. Her Kermit the Frog T-shirt was her favorite! And now he was all stained with red juice. Erik looked up at poor Christine's face. She was so sad that her Kermit T-shirt was stained and Raoul was just rolling around on the floor laughing about it.

"It's okay Christine," Erik said, hoping to make her stop crying. "The stain will come off. My mama always gets stains off my shirts."

Christine sniffled. "Weally?"

"Yup! Your mama can get the stain off Kermit."

Christine beamed and gave a Erik a big hug. "Tank you Ewik!" She said. Erik felt like he was in heaven.

"Alright children!" Ms. Duran called from her desk in the corner of the room. "Lunch time is over! Time to put your lunch boxes back on the shelf and you can go play!"

All the children screamed in happiness and threw their lunch boxes on the shelf. Erik threw his in the trash can, since there was no point in keeping it.

Christine grabbed Erik's hand and walked him over to the toy chest.

"What you wanna pway?"

Before Erik could answer, Raoul came up to Christine and tapped her on the shoulder. Two boys were behind him, Booger and Alfred.

"I'm gonna pway wit dem." He said. Christine nodded and they went to go play with Raoul's magical paper airplane. But Erik watched them closely. After Raoul threw the airplane once, he picked it back up and the three boys went and huddled up in a corner. They occasionally peeped over at Erik, who would automatically turn his head away.

"Ewik, can you wead this to me?" She asked, picking up a Muppet book from the book shelf. "I can't wead yet."

Erik nodded and held Christine's hand. They both walked to the carpet and sat down. It was strange that Erik knew how to read, since he was only in Preschool, but he was one smart little boy.

Erik read the cover of the book to Christine. It was called 'Kermit's Swamp Years'. Erik started to read her the book, and Christine listened intently. But when Erik got to the tenth page of the book, somebody snatched it away from him. It was Raoul, and his gang behind him.

"Hey! Give it back!" Christine wailed. She tried to grab the book from Raoul, but Booger pushed her back down, causing her to land on her butt. A tear was visible running down her cheek.

Erik clentched his fists. He stood up and was ready to fight with Raoul, if that's what he had to do to win the book back and make Booger say sorry for hurting Christine.

"I'm not givin' it back until you take dat mask off!" Raoul yelled.

"He don't have to!" Christine said defensively.

"Yes he do!" Alfred piped in.

Alfred and Booger darted to Erik and held his arms behind his back so he couldn't stop Raoul from taking his mask off. Once Raoul was about to take it off, Christine lunged at him, causing both Raoul and Christine to fall on the floor.

Christine pounded on his chest like a wild animal and screamed, "Leave Ewik awone!"

Luckily, at the moment, Ms. Duran was out of the room. But she could be back any moment now. Christine got off of Raoul and went to go push Alfred and Booger out of the way, but it was too late. Raoul had snatched Erik's mask off.

Everyone was silent for a moment until Alfred, Booger, and Raoul screamed at the same time: "Ewww! He's UGWLY!"

Christine snatched the mask out of Raoul's hand and gave it back to Erik, who took it and put it back on quickly. Christine put her tiny hand on Erik's shoulder to comfort him, but Erik ran to the corner of the room, buried his face in his hands and started to cry.

"Look wat you done!" Christine screamed to Raoul. Raoul, Booger, and Alfred only kept chanting that Erik was ugly, and started to tell every child in the classroom.

Christine went up to Erik and patted his shoulder. "It's oh tay, Ewik! Raoul is poopey brain!"

Erik giggled and looked up at Christine with his tear stained face. "Didn't you think I was ugly?"

"No," Christine said truthfully. "I tink you cute!"

Erik smiled and was very surprised when Christine leaned in to give him a kiss on the cheek. Erik gasped and felt the part of his cheek where Christine had kissed him. _I'm never washing my face again..._

Ms. Duran stepped into the room cheerfully, but that faded when she heard Raoul, Booger, and Alfred all chanting that Erik was ugly. Ms. Duran put her hands on her hips and tapped her foot on the ground.

They had some explaining to do.

Raoul, Booger, and Alfred were all sent to time out in different corners of the room. Meanwhile, Erik was reading to Christine the rest of her Kermit book that Raoul had snatched away. Once they were finished, Christine asked:

"Wat we do now?"

"Don't know." Erik replied.

"Hmmm," Christine thought. Just then, she grinned and exclaimed, "I know! Wet's pway tag!"

"Why?"

"Cuz it's fun!"

Before Erik could reply, Ms. Duran yelled,

"Alright class, time for afternoon recess! And then it will be time to go home, so line up at the door so we can go outside and play!"

All the children squealed in delight and ran towards the door. Christine held onto Erik's hand and stood in front of him in line. As all the children walked outside, everyone started to call out what they wanted to play with. When they were on the playground, everyone went to grab something.

"Wet's pway hide and go peep!" Christine suggested.

"Okay," Erik said. "Who's it first?"

"You! I go and hide, you count to 18!" And with that, she darted away. Erik shrugged, covered his eyes and started to count to eighteen.

Christine didn't know where to hide. It seemed that every play area was taken by children. So she decided to go and hide behind the bushes. But unfortunatley, Raoul, Booger, and Alfred were behind there too.

"Get out of our cwub! It's fer boys only!" Alfred spat to Christine.

"I can't, I hidin! Shhh!" She said and ducked lower behind the bushes.

"You can stay, Christine. But you gots ta give me a kissy!" Raoul squealed.

"Eww!" Christine squeaked.

Erik heard Christine's voice behind the bushes. It was very easy to find her too, because her brown curly hair was sticking up and she kept moving her head up and down and peeking over the bush to see if Erik was coming.

Erik ran over to the bush and yelled, "I got ya, Christine!"

Erik looked behind the bush to see Christine, but he also saw Raoul ready to give her a kiss on the cheek. Christine pushed him away and stood up, quickly running away from him.

"Ahh!" She screamed. "Raoul's got _cooties_!"

Erik ran behind her and followed her wherever she ran to. She ran past some trees, under the slide, and she also ran into a metal pole, but that didn't stop her from getting up and running again.

Erik occasionally looked over his shoulder, and he saw Raoul chasing them. He was pretty slow, which made Erik laugh.

"Christine!" Raoul called out. "All I want is a kissy!"

"Neoo!" Christine squealed. "You gots _cooties_!"

Erik laughed as he chased Christine around the playground, followed by Raoul. But this time, it was him who ran into a metal pole.

Christine was still running, since she didn't know Erik had ran into the pole. But it didn't matter to Erik. He just stood up and started to run behind Christine again. He looked over his shoulder and saw Raoul on the ground, panting for breath. He didn't want to chase Christine anymore.

"Christine!" Erik called from behind her. "Raoul's gone!"

Christine stopped and panted, then walked over to Erik, still trying to catch her breath. It was tough work being chased by Raoul, even though he was pretty slow.

"Now we can pway!" She exclaimed. "You wanna play on da swings?"

"Okay." Erik said.

Luckily, there was one swing left. Christine ran to it as fast as her little legs could carry her. Once she sat on it, she asked Erik,

"Will you push me?"

"Of course."

Erik pushed her on the swings and Christine squealed with delight. She loved the swings.

"Higher Ewik!"

"It's Erik." He said.

"Oh yeah, higher Erik!"

Erik pushed her higher on the swings, and ignored the three girls who were screaming at Erik to push them higher. All he cared aboou was his little Christine.

Ms. Duran looked at her watch and gasped. She blew a whistle and yelled, "Alright class! It's time to go inside, your parents will be here!"

The class lined up in a single file line and marched back into the classroom. Parents were waiting in the room for their children, and half of the class was now gone. The remaining children just sat and played, waiting for their parents to get here.

"Erik?" Christine asked, as her and Erik were sitting on the ground.

"Yeah?"

"Awe you my fwend?"

"Oh course I am! You're my best friend." Erik grinned.

"Yay! You my best fwend too!"

By now, the whole class was gone, except for Christine and Erik. Christine wanted to run around the room and play with everything at once, since her mom wasn't here yet, but suddenly, her mom walked in the door.

"Mommy!" Christine exclaimed. "Look! I made a bestest fwend! His name is Erik!" And Christine pointed to Erik, who was now standing up and smiling.

"Why, hello there Erik!" Mrs. Daae said. Erik smiled back shyly.

Christine walked up to Erik and said, "I see you tomorrow, bestest fwend!"

"Okay." Erik grinned. Christine kissed her bestest friend on the cheek and ran out the door.

Erik smiled. _I'm never washing this cheek again..._


End file.
